Peculiarities of the formation and development of ionization fronts in a pre-ionized gas medium

The influence of the initial conditions on specific features of the formation and development of a cathode-directed ionization wave between two flat electrodes in helium at atmospheric pressure was studied at nanosecond time resolution using an FER$_{2-1}$ high-speed photoelectron monitor. Results of numerical simulations based on a two-dimensional axisymmetric diffusion–drift model are in satisfactory agreement with experimental data.